M&A IN GREATER CHINA CONTINUE TO FALL IN H1 2009

Singapore, 14 July 2009 – The ZEPHYR Greater China M&A Report for H1 2009 uses data from the ZEPHYR online M&A deals database. It focuses on deal activity by target company. Greater China is defined as China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Deals by volume and value

The dramatic events of 2008 continued to leave their mark on mergers and acquisitions activity in H1 2009, with volume and value falling back from the high results reported in H2 2007.

Total deal value fell 13 per cent to USD 107,453 million in the space of six months from USD 123,637 million in H2 2008 – and was less than half the USD 226,715 million recorded in H2 2007.

Meanwhile the total number of deals deteriorated by almost a fifth to 2,563 in H1 2009 – from 3,155 in H2 2008 – and was 39 per cent down on the 4,207 transactions reported in H2 2007.

Top 20 deals

The banking sector dominated the top ten deals by value in H1 2009. Leading the way was Bank of America’s sale of a 6 per cent stake in China Construction Bank valued at USD 7,315 million to a group of investors including China Life Insurance.

There were only two non-banking transactions in the top ten, the first being Aluminum Corporation of China, a state-controlled aluminium holding company, issuing new A shares with a market value of USD 1,463 million.

The other involved Tianjin Port Group selling its 57 per cent stake in the port operator Tianjin Port to Grand Point Investment for USD 1,408 million.

Only one of the top eight banking deals featured a company not based on the mainland; China CITIC Bank entered into an agreement to buy a 70 per cent interest in Hong Kong’s CITIC International Financial from Gloryshare Investments for USD 1,750 million.

Three of the top 20 deals by value failed to attain a consideration above USD 1,000 million.

Private equity deals by volume and value

The value of private equity deals soared to a high of USD 10,664 million in H1 2009 from a low of USD 1,948 million in records dating back to 2006.

This was despite volume having tailed off to 45 transactions – down 37 per cent from 71 deals in H2 2008 and 57 per cent lower than the high of 104 deals recorded in H1 2008.

Top 20 private equity deals

The automobile industry featured high in the top 20 private equity deals in H1 2009; Bohai Industrial Investment Fund Management Company and CDH Investments took a fifth of SAIC Chery Automobile in a development round worth USD 293 million.

However, the top 20 is far and away dominated by two banking sector deals – Temasek Holdings and Hopu Investment Management’s USD 7,315 million investment in China Construction Bank and a transaction, also backed by Hopu, which targeted 4 per cent of Bank of China for USD 2,381 million.

Please email [email protected] for a free copy of the detailed report.

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ZEPHYR is an information solution containing M&A, IPO, VC and PE deals and rumours worldwide and is published by Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing (BvDEP). It contains information on over 600,000 deals worldwide and includes links to complementary company financials and peer reports from BvDEP’s corporate product range for company valuation and benchmarking.

About Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing (BvDEP)
Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing (BvDEP) is a leading electronic publisher of business information. The company has 28 offices worldwide. It is best known for its solutions containing full financial information on companies worldwide. These solutions combine multiple high quality data sources with flexible software to allow users to harness data for research, marketing intelligence and analysis. Solutions containing listed and unlisted companies worldwide include ORBIS, OSIRIS and MINT GLOBAL. There are also solutions which cater to specific regions such as ORIANA (Asia Pacific), QIN (China) and AMADEUS (Europe). BvDEP also publishes ZEPHYR which contains international M&A deal information. Additionally, BvDEP has also developed Transfer Pricing Catalyst which is a software framework designed to streamline the process of transfer pricing analysis.

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